Bouquets of Love

I'm at the age where wedding invites are sporadic, rather than 5 per summer, so I haven't invested in any specific wedding sets, so when I needed a card for my beautiful cousin's wedding, I pulled out this fabulous Valentine set, that I am SOOO glad was carried through to the new catalogue! 

And of course, it goes perfectly with the Sale-A-Bration paper from last spring, which I am still head over heels in love with, so that's what I used ;)

I pulled inspiration from 3 challenges for this one... Create with Connie and Mary for the sketch, Just Add Ink for the bright florals, and SUO Challenges Buttons & Brads theme for the brad usage on the bow.

The sketch (flipped):

The inspiration:

Reason To Smile

Another thing I finally had a chance to play with was the July exclusive 2-step stamp set, Reason to Smile, which is ONLY $5, if you order $60 CDN!!! I used Pals Paper Arts sketch for this one, along with some Orchard Harvest and Patio Party papers, and the new Brushed Bronze Designer Buttons. I also have to admit, I wasted some unnecessary time on this one, when I had the "brilliant" idea to literally tie this bow and tag onto the stem of the flower. So, I cut slits on each side, and threaded the ribbon through it and tied the tag on, but looking at it now, I could have more easily tied the bow to the tag and glued it on, and it would've still looked exactly the same... oh well, live and learn ;)

And here's the sketch, which I flipped... 

In Stitches

In the midst of a very busy month, I FINALLY had a chance to sit down and play with some of my new pre-order goodies from the upcoming Holiday catalogue, and found the Stampin' 411 sketch fit just perfectly! Some of the Orchard Harvest papers are perfect for the Hoop La La set, so I decided to have some fun with that. The tried and true Lattice folder works great to accent the two as well, and with the new Core'dinations paper, it was even better! After sanding the embossed Core'dinations, it even had a beautiful fabric like feel and look to it that accented the theme of the card perfectly. And for some finishing touches, I used the new silver Stampin Dazzle marker to color the metal screwpiece at the top of the embroidery ring, and I silver embossed the needle stamp directly onto the "stitch" paper, and threaded some Baker's Twine through it, as if it was sewing the stitches on the paper. And of course, I clear embossed the sentiment, so it would be raised like actual crosstitches.

And here's the sketch I used...

Watermelon Season!

My niece was excited to discover there was a Melon scented embossing powder, and the new in colors lend themselves PERFECTLY to watermelon cards, so I made her this card to celebrate her graduation to middle school... it's so cheerful and yummy, and she loved it :) I used the Create with Connie and Mary challenge for it.

And the sketch...

Simple but worn

This birthday card for my 6 year old nephew was done with the Clean & Simple Stamping challenge, so I challenged myself to really keep it simple. I also used the color challenge from Pals Paper Arts, but ended up switching the Early Espresso to Chocolate Chip and the Definitely Daffodil to So Saffron.

And the sketches...